Australian Financial Review chief political correspondent

THE NSW senator John Faulkner will push to reform the NSW Labor Party at its next state conference due next June, creating the potential for a messy brawl over internal party processes just months from a federal election.

Senator Faulkner said on Thursday it would help if the Prime Minster, Julia Gillard, also got behind his renewed push to diminish the power and influence of factions by overhauling the party's rules and structures.

''Of course, it's true that if party leaders lend their weight to such measures then that is obviously advantageous,'' he told ABC radio.

In a speech on Tuesday on the need for increased accountability and integrity measures across the political spectrum, Senator Faulkner said NSW Labor had to lead by example because of its excessive factionalism and the tolerance of the likes of the former ministers, Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald, now the subject of a corruption inquiry.

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Senator Faulkner's own Left faction has effusively backed seven reforms proposed by the senator that would further democratise the party and diminish factional power.

It passed a resolution apologising for preselecting Mr Macdonald for Parliament and calling for the NSW branch to hold a special conference to deal with ''extreme factionalism'', the operation of Labor's tribunals and to examine the direct election by party members of the NSW parliamentary leader.

There is no broader appetite for a special conference and party officials said the obvious forum to try and effect change would be the annual state conference.

Senator Faulkner said he would argue his case then.

The Right, which controls the party, is lukewarm at best towards the senator's proposals. It has dismissed suggestions from the Left that it apologise for Mr Obeid as the Left had apologised for Mr Macdonald.

Senator Faulkner said he was not trying to abolish factions, just reduce their influence.

"We've had factions operating since the time of Julius Caesar. Of course people of like mind are going to come together and work together in common cause. But when factional or subfactional interests are put ahead of the ALP, we have a problem,'' he said.